


The Shape I Found You In

by Rrrowr



Series: Fuseverse [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Artificial Intelligence, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Robot, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-19
Updated: 2012-03-19
Packaged: 2017-11-02 05:07:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/365308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rrrowr/pseuds/Rrrowr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine is a sentient AI robot. He’s finally found Kurt and intends to stay with him. His creator, Wes, convinces Kurt to let him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shape I Found You In

Wes got Blaine’s text at 3am.

_I found his apartment,_ it read. _Can I stay?_

Wes didn’t reply with _yes_ or _no_. The first implied his permission, which he did not want to give. The second made him sound cruel, and he was working hard to not be exactly that. Putting Blaine’s needs before his own, even when it was of no benefit to him, was a big part of the changes he was trying to instill in himself.

So, he responded with the truth: _You don’t have much of a choice._

He didn’t ask where Blaine was. He didn’t want to know. If USRobotics asked where their sentient artificial intelligence project had disappeared, Wes wanted to be able to say honestly that he had no idea. If Blaine were smart (he was and getting cleverer every day), he would never let Wes know, and they would stay in contact with each other only through this roundabout method of text messages and captioned photos. The phone was even through a friend’s contract instead of his own.

It was frustrating to have to keep everything under wraps in this small way, but Wes firmly believed it to be worth it. Even though he’d risked everything he had — his job, his life’s work, his reputation — to keep Blaine from being a poster child and puppet for a corporation, he wasn’t about to let that risk go to waste by being sloppy. Blaine was in the real world now and he would stay there, even if Wes missed him terribly.

Wes waited for five minutes — ten. Blaine’s incessant need to keep Wes abreast of his slow, stumbling entrance into human life was mostly endearing, but the lag between updates was almost as painful as the round-the-clock messages. Blaine seemed to consider the concept of sleep a fascinating memory, but something he no longer required. He slept only when he needed to recharge and rarely remembered to consider the sleep of others. So, Wes kept waiting — fifteen minutes now — but his phone remained stubbornly dark.

The longer he waited, the more tempting it was to just slide back into his dreams, but just as his eyes were beginning to droop, his phone lit up with a new message from Blaine: _Had trouble getting into the building. Kurt isn’t home. What do I do?_

_Come back to me,_ is what Wes wished he could say. He didn’t because Blaine wouldn’t want to come back anyway. What use was there in asking when he would only be rejected? So, Wes sucked it up and replied with: _Wait for him. I’m sure he’ll turn up eventually._

Wes was right, of course. Kurt did turn up, and unlike Blaine, he had the courtesy to wait for a decent hour before calling Wes for answers. 7am was better than 3am any day of the week. 

“Mr. Bryce — Wes,” said Kurt when Wes picked up the call over a cup of coffee and a bagel. It was amazing how stressed Kurt could sound in just three words. “This may be sudden, but you’re the only one I can think of who would be able to explain what’s going on. Last night, this man—” Kurt cut himself off and took a controlled breath before continuing. “He shouldn’t exist and yet, he’s in my living room.”

“Everything he’s told you is true,” Wes said, doing his best to sound reassuring though he could not summon up concern for Kurt’s mental stability in the least. “He’s Blaine. The program that you helped create was put into an android body and now he’s in your living room.”

“Yes, I got _that_ ,” Kurt said snippily. “I meant, what is he doing here in New York—” (Well, there went plausible deniability.) ”—when he should be with you.”

Wes sat back in his chair, thinking that was at least one thing on which they could both agree. “I would like nothing more than to be able to keep him with me,” he said, feeling oddly vulnerable for having confessed so, “but what Blaine wants is freedom. What he does with his freedom is up to him. He _appears_ to love you. Appreciate it for what it is, Kurt. God knows I would rather it were anyone else.”

Kurt made an angry, disgusted sound. “I swear, your jealousy turns you into such an asshole—”

“If you don’t want him, send him away.”

“Is that what you did?”

Wes grit his teeth and took a drink from his coffee instead of shouting back at Kurt like he so desperately wished to do. The pause made him sound sadder than he intended when he finally spoke. “You know I would never.” Another sip just to have something to do. “Look, I’ll help when he has trouble, but other than that, I can’t risk it.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do with him?” Kurt demanded. “He’s—”

_A robot. Not real._ Wes expected so many different ends to that sentence.

“— _older_. And different from what I remember.”

Wes laughed. “Neither of you are sixteen. Did you expect him to stay the same forever?”

Kurt sighed. “I didn’t expect him at all.”

Wes had to beat down the surge of sympathy he felt to that sentiment. “Keep him,” he told Kurt. “Help him out. Figure out how the two of you fit again. Consider it a gift and a way of saying sorry for firing you.” Kurt scoffed on the other end of the line. “It’s a fresh start, Kurt. I suggest you take advantage of it.”

Neither of them said goodbye before hanging up. Wes turned the cell phone’s ringer down to silent and tossed it onto his kitchen counter. The last of his coffee went down the drain. He suspected that he would not be hearing from Blaine for a long while now that Blaine had Kurt to help him understand. The next time his phone rang, it would be because Blaine was injured or because he was experiencing glitches.

No more 3am text messages. No more inquiries about whether this food or that food was compatible with his system (none of them were and Blaine knew that perfectly well). No more sneaking around under USRobotic’s supervision. It should be a relief, Wes knew, but it really, _really_ wasn’t.

He scooped up his phone and sent Blaine one last text message before work:

_Let me know how it goes._

It was really foolish of him to let himself fall back into this obsession when he was supposed to be letting go, but Wes was invested, wholly and without regret. Blaine’s answer was neutral and yet:

_I will._

It was the most reassuring thing a friend had ever said.

*  
*  
*


End file.
